It seems like it was just yesterday that my family and I moved to Daufuskie, just in time for our oldest daughter to begin kindergarten at the elementary school. At the time, her sister, just 18 months old, could only gaze longingly at the tiny school bus that would scoop up her big sister and whisk her away to a place where it seemed like all of the kids on the island played together. Yesterday, that little 18-month-old toddler walked across the stage as an 18-year-old woman to receive her high school diploma and move on to bigger (and hopefully better) things.
Though we had made an effort as a family to live each individual day together, somehow the collective years just flew past. Once, my wife and I were a young couple with two little kids, and now we’re on the verge of being empty nesters. We blinked, and they grew up. The Apostle Peter wrote that with the Lord, a thousand years is like a day, and while I may not know exactly what that feels like, it does seem at times as if seventeen years has passed by in the span of a day. Somehow, I suspect that if the Lord blesses us with another seventeen years, they will fly by even faster.
As a parent, I now find myself wondering what lessons did I succeed in passing along during those years, and what lessons did I neglect to convey because I always assumed that I would have more time. I know that God is under no obligation to grant any of us another day on Earth, but I have been operating under the notion that I could always get to various things tomorrow. Now, as I look back and see how quickly yesterday flew past, I become less and less certain of that. If there are things that are really important in our lives – things that we want to pass along to those who we love – then we shouldn’t assume that we can wait until tomorrow to do that. Even if we make it to tomorrow, tomorrow will pass us by even faster than yesterday.
James 4:13-14 says: 13Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
Let us, therefore, not neglect today by presuming that we will have time tomorrow. Life moves too quickly for us to do that, so we need to grab ahold of the moments that we are presented with today and use them to accomplish those things that are most important to us. If we don’t, we might wake up one day and see that the opportunity that we had been waiting for has just walked across the stage and exited the stadium, leaving us to wonder how that happened so quickly.
Peace and blessings – Pastor Aaron